


moon soaked and lightning loved

by Crystalinastar



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Bars, Bisexual Artemis Crock, Clubbing, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Halloween, Healing, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, LGBTQ Themes, Pansexual Zatanna Zatara, Pre-Relationship, between YJ season 2 and season 3, rated teen for alcohol and bars, shots shots SHOTS SHOTS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-15 23:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21261209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalinastar/pseuds/Crystalinastar
Summary: Zatanna’s eyes are soft with understanding when she declares, “I know what you need: a girl’s night out.”“No villains that are the brother of the ghost girl he killed,” Artemis says wryly. “Please.”Zatanna laughs and shrugs. “No promises. We need to get you a costume. How about—” She stops herself and growls cutely.Artemis makes a retching noise. “Absolutely not.”“Your loss.”-The year Wally dies, Zatanna takes Artemis out for a night of clubbing—that is, going from city to city and club to club—to take her mind off things.Title inspired by "Artemis Girl" by Nikita Gill! (Check out her work, it's phenomenal!)





	moon soaked and lightning loved

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I am a minor and have been to no actual bars. The one described in detail is based off of a Tumblr post.
> 
> tw: drinking, clubbing, one non-graphic mention of sexually provocative activity, mentions of death, the entire thing is Artemis grieving Wally so if ignoring Wally's "death" is what you do, don't come here

Artemis rolls over in her bed. She sees the picture of her and Wally, and she closes her eyes. She can sleep for another hour, she doesn’t have school anymore. The only time she goes out is when she needs groceries or when she’s out as Tigress. 

She’ll re-enroll next semester—she just needs time. 

Someone loudly knocks on the door.

She mentally goes through who it could be. Dick is softer, subtler, and usually enters through the window without warning. Roy is busy with Lian and trying to find a job. Kaldur is also busy, with the Team. 

She opens the door, and Zatanna walks in, completely disregarding Artemis’s messy hair and rumpled clothing. “You come back to life and a full-scale clean up isn’t the first thing you do? _ Wally West _was the one living here while you were gone.”

Though the mentions of Wally’s name sends a sharp pang straight to her chest, she giggles. “Never found the time. Between the funeral, and the grieving, and—” Okay, that’s enough emotional speaking for today. Artemis blows out a breath.

Zatanna’s eyes are soft with understanding when she declares, “I know what you need: a girl’s night out. A _spooky _girl's night out.”

“No villains that are the brother of the ghost girl he killed,” Artemis says wryly. “Please.”

Zatanna laughs and shrugs. “No promises. We need to get you a costume. How about—” She stops herself and growls cutely. 

Artemis makes a retching noise. “Absolutely not.”

“Your loss.”

* * *

“What do you think about a… vampire?”

“Been there, done that.”  
  
True to her word, Zatanna has had Artemis looking for costumes for an hour now. Girl’s night out doesn’t mean what it did six years ago—instead of picking at painful memories like a scab, Zatanna wants to take her Halloween clubbing.

Zatanna rolls her eyes. “You’re so hard to work with. Angel?”

“No.”

“Devil?”

“No.”

“Lucifer?”

“Isn’t that the devil?”

“No, the TV one. _ I_, for one, think you would look great in a suit.”

“Solid no.”

“You’re a buzzkill. How about…” A devious grin grows on Zatanna’s face and Artemis braces herself for whatever is about to come. “A magician.”

Artemis sighs, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “You want me to dress up as you.”

“No, a _ magician_,” Zatanna replies as if that clears it all up. “And I’d dress up as Katniss Everdeen. It’ll be funny.”

Artemis’s mind flashes back to when she first saw _ Hunger Games _ with her mom, marking down a tally every time they got archery wrong. “You’re a disgrace. Dress up like a _ real _archer. Robin Hood, the Disney one.”

Zatanna snorts herself out of house and home. “Now I’m definitely going as Katniss, just to annoy you. You’re coming as a magician.”

“I am _ not_,” Artemis protests. 

She’s smiling and laughing along with Zatanna. She can’t think of a single time since that fateful June 20th that she has been this _ light _and airy, as if her grief, death, just couldn’t touch her. And Zatanna treats her not like someone fragile, someone who’s about to shatter at any given moment. 

She likes it.

* * *

“Thanks, I hate it,” Artemis mumbles under her breath when Zatanna chants a spell that causes her magician’s hat to stick on her head like evolved superglue, after Artemis tore it down thrice.

“I aim to please,” Zatanna responds smugly. 

Artemis closes her eyes for one second, then another, partly in exasperation and partly because she can’t believe she’s doing this. “Where’s our first club?”

“Gotham.”

She gives Zatanna an incredulous look.

Zatanna holds up her hands defensively. “I thought you should head back to your roots. I swear. Also, Gotham has the best nightclubs.”

“Gotham has _ criminal _nightclubs,” Artemis says.

“And? We’re superheroes, honey.”

Artemis opens her mouth to reply, then slams it shut. “Fine.” 

If Zatanna wants a disaster, she’s going to get a disaster. Artemis will just come along and watch it explode.

Then she can go back to lounging around in bed and kicking ass at night. Which is what she wants.

Because she just needs time.

* * *

The first nightclub is lit with a dazzling array of multicolored lights. Flags adorn the walls, and there’s bowls by the door filled with cheap rubber wristbands that match the flags and little name tags and markers for said name tags.

“Hold on,” Artemis says, still blinking back the sudden onslaught on her eyeballs. “You brought me to a gay bar?”

“Um, yeah,” Zatanna replies, her eyebrows creasing as she slips on a pink, yellow, and blue striped wristband. “If that’s okay with you. I have a backup Gotham bar that we could go to if you’re uncomfortable.”

Artemis shakes her head. “It’s fine, Zee.” Zatanna’s lips quirk upwards at the nickname. “I’m, uh. I’m bisexual. I think. So this should be neat.”

A hand slips into hers—it’s Zatanna’s. “Thanks for trusting me,” she whispers, staring into Artemis’s eyes with the soft intensity of starlight. For a moment, the world seems to stand still.

Then the music ramps up a notch, and it’s shaking and spinning and flashing. 

“Yeah,” Artemis murmurs, pulling her arms back to her side. “Anytime.”

Zatanna hands her a pink, purple, and blue wristband. Artemis wrestles with it and manages to get it on her wrist. She takes a name tag, a marker, and pauses over the prompt: “Looking for…” She quickly scribbles down, “a friend” and caps the marker. 

“You dragged me to a bar,” she says finally. “You owe me a drink.”

“Then the dance floor?” Zatanna asks with a smirk. 

Artemis chuckles. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

* * *

It doesn’t sting that Zatanna finds a girl to dance with—grind against, more like—instantly. She’s charming, charismatic, and hot. Why wouldn’t she find a girl? It’s fine.

Artemis sips at her Halloween-themed cocktail, completely with a little dry ice and green gummy worms. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t.

Wally would’ve loved this place. He would’ve dragged her down to the dance floor and jumped up and down in a speedster’s version of dancing, managing to step on her feet at least twenty times throughout the night. Artemis would’ve given in, swayed to the beat maybe, and leaned in closer to Wally’s encompassing warmth.

But he’s not here. Because he—

Artemis bites the inside of her cheek. Chews it slowly. Maybe the metallic tang of blood would make this cocktail taste better, numb the sensation of the vodka. 

“Hey,” someone greets.

Artemis swivels around on her spinny bar chair. The person talking to her doesn’t look like a threat, with bright blue hair cut short and idly fidgeting with one of two wristbands on her arm. It’s the green and greyscale one, as opposed to her purple and greyscale one. She wonders what those mean.

“Hi,” she says in return. “Uh.”

The woman is definitely uncomfortable, maybe as much as Artemis herself is. Why she approached the brooding woman sitting at the bar by herself is a mystery.

“Cool costume,” the woman says. “I’m—my name is Pandora. I know it’s unique, my parents were huge Greek myth people—”

“No, it’s cool,” Artemis replies. “I’m Artemis, so. I get it.”

“Oh.” Pandora snorts to herself. “Well that’s ironic. I like your costume. Shit, I said that already. So, um. Magician fan?”

Artemis smiles and rolls her eyes. “My friend is a magician. She thought it would be funny. She’s, uh, over there actually.” She jabs her thumb to where Zatanna is whispering something seductively in her partner’s ear, and her partner tosses her head back and laughs.

Pandora winces. “Ditched, huh? Me too. Except my friend’s not dancing, she’s…” She makes an obscene gesture, and Artemis winces in turn. “And I saw you were looking for a friend. Which is unusual in places like this, so here I am. A friend.” She adds jazz hands onto the end of her sentence, but with little jazz in the motion.

“Thanks,” Artemis says, and although she’s normally kind of on autopilot with strangers, she actually means it. 

She opens her mouth, then closes it again, then opens, then closes. She wants to keep the conversation going but doesn’t know how. She opens her mouth—but this time, she doesn’t close it again. Instead, she says, “Forgive me if this is rude, but what do the colors on your wristband mean?” Damnit, she should’ve kept her mouth shut.

Pandora’s eyes crinkle. “It’s not rude, don’t worry. They’re the asexual and aromantic flags—I don’t experience sexual attraction or romantic attraction. Thanks for, um, being polite about asking.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Artemis finds herself saying. “I think it’s cool.”

A beat of silence passes, but it isn’t awkward. Artemis and Pandora sit with each other in a silence of mutual respect and understanding. 

“Hey!” Zatanna jogs up to Artemis. “Sorry I just kind of abandoned you. This night is about you, not me. Next stop?”

“Uh, hold on a second.” Artemis leaps over the bar, grabs a notepad and pen, hops back over, and scribbles her number down onto the notepad. She tears it off and hands it to Pandora. “For when you need a friend.”

Pandora’s smile is bright and wide. “Same—same to you.”

Satisfied, Artemis lets Zatanna drag her away.

“Maybe I should leave you be more often,” she muses.

“How about you don’t,” Artemis shoots back.

Zatanna shrugs, still beaming. Her walking is a little stilted, as if she had gotten drunk on strobe lights and Shirley Temple. “Worth a shot.”

* * *

They go to three more bars, which means three more parties with pounding music and blinding lights. They run outside, giggling, after an encounter with a creep.

“Your uppercut hasn’t gotten any less deadly,” Zatanna remarks, panting.

“You’re damn right it didn’t.” Artemis’s grin is all teeth, illuminated by the full moon. “Where to next?”

Zatanna hesitates. “Central.”

“Why?” Artemis crosses her arms, ignoring the wave of nausea that passes over her.

“Do you not want to?”

“No,” she replies instantly. “No, I’m fine. Just wondering.” She stretches, enjoying the small crick in her arms releasing. Punching or no, she still has to keep her body ready and flexible. (M’gann and Conner don’t have to do this. Human bodies _ suck_.)

Zatanna’s gaze lingers on Artemis. “It’s the last place we can zeta to.”

“Right.” She swallows uncomfortably. All she has to do is… not think about Wally. Except Central is so in love with their Flashes that the emblem is everywhere. She’ll just go blind, it’s no big deal. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

The moment Artemis steps through the door and sees a dizzying array of red and gold, she knows this is going to be hard.

The harshness of the coloring makes the Gotham club seem pastel in comparison. It isn’t even the right shade. The music blurs, like someone had the grand idea to press the 2x button on a YouTube video except worse. 

“I need a drink,” she blurts and shoves her way to the bar. 

She slams a dollar bill on the table—she doesn’t care which one it is, she stole it out of Dick’s credit card anyways. “Tequila shots,” she orders. “As many as this will pay for.” 

The bartender glances from the money, then to her, then back to the money. He begins lining up shot glasses.

One, two, three, four… Huh, apparently she put down a hundred dollar bill, because this is _ ten _fucking shot glasses. The bartender swipes the money as if Artemis is going to change her mind. She can take it.

“What’s your story?” the bartender asks wryly, delicately placing the shots in front of her. 

Artemis tilts her head back and burning tequila sloshes down her throat. She winces, and clears her throat. “Bad night. Distract me.”

The next shot goes down easier than the first. The third is even better.

“Where do you think Kid Flash went?” 

“Kid Flash is still around,” Artemis says slowly, coarsely. The alcohol starts to set in, her head begins to feel fuzzy.

The bartender shakes his head. “That’s a different Kid Flash. What happened to the old one? Did he retire? Maybe the second Flash,”—Artemis always forgets Barry Allen wasn’t the first—“had to step down and KF stepped up.”

God, Artemis wishes. The next three shots disappear.

Her eyes start to burn. The alcohol was a bad idea. It’s just making everything seem so much worse, and on top of that, the room starts spinning.

She chews the inside of her cheek. This is an embarrassing way to end her Halloween. 

_ Seven… eight… _

“Maybe the OG Kid Flash died.”

She can’t stop the cry that comes out of her mouth. 

“Artemis!” Zatanna exclaims. “There you are. Lost you in the crowd. You didn’t drink all of this, did you?”

“She did,” chimes the unhelpful bartender. Artemis turns to glare at him, but then she starts falling over.

“Hey, hey, hey now,” Zatanna cautions, holding Artemis’ back upright. “I got you, I got you. We shouldn’t have come here, I see that now. What’s wrong?”

“Wally,” she manages to blubber out before her vision is clouded with tears. She fumbles for another shot glass.

“_No_,” Zatanna tells her sternly. “No. Hear, lemme…” Two clinks of glass later and Zatanna is muttering Italian swears under her breath. “That’s nasty. How do you do that?”

Her cheek is going to be bloody and bruised come morning. Might as well be a dog toy at this point. “Wanna forget,” she says. Is there a slur in her words? Probably. She can’t tell. She should be able to, she had to sit through Batman’s PowerPoint presentation on the effects of alcohol abuse.

(Each Leaguer took a topic. Poor Clark had to have The Talk with them. Hal had originally drawn the shortest straw, but everyone agreed Hal should not be giving teens sex ed.)

She breathes in, and her breath is shaky and uneven. She hates it, she _ hates it_. She’s so fucking pathetic. 

“I’m right here,” Zatanna says, running fingers through her hair. It relaxes her instantly—Wally always did it to help her fall asleep. “Let’s get you home.”

“Hands in the air!” drawls the cocky voice of a robber. 

This time, Artemis curses, but in Vietnamese. She blinks, but the swaying and the spinning won’t go away. 

“Why,” Zatanna murmurs. “Why does this always happen.” She rubs her forehead. “Just when I took those shots, too.”

“Who's it?”

“Captain Cold.”

Ah, Snart. The villain that had cornered Artemis within a month of her and Wally dating and threatened her to never hurt their Baby Flash. Wally had gone red in the ears.

The familiar crackle of lightning passes, and Barry is standing right there, in his ridiculous red suit. It’s even worse, with the red lights and the tacky gold accent tables. 

“Give it up, Snart,” Barry sighs. “You’ve been at this all night. Aren’t you tired?”

“Crime never sleeps, Flash. Besides, isn’t it _ ice _to see a familiar face?”

“Look, I had to put the kid to bed, so please. Just don’t.”

“Oh,” Snart says, apparently surprised. “The kid’s in bed? Damnit. This was going to be the second most fun takedown of the night.”

Artemis feels Barry’s pain on a spiritual level.

Barry handcuffs Snart, but Artemis knows Snart will mysteriously break out before he gets to the cop car. It’s always cat and mouse with these two.

There’s more lightning, and the party resumes. 

Artemis uses her mildly spinny chair to swivel and promptly vomit.

* * *

“Wait,” Artemis says when she’s in a fresh set of clothes, with no damned magician’s hat this time. Zatanna is still dressed at Katniss, but small victories. “I… want to visit—” Her voice gets caught in her throat, and it stings.

Zatanna only nods, dutifully reciting, _ “Ekat su ot eht yretemec.” _

Graves appear around them, and Artemis wonders if she really was that obvious. 

In front of her reads, “Wallace Rudolph West. He never stopped running towards those he loved,” and her knees buckle. 

She’s pathetic. She’s _ pathetic_. Zatanna’s hand rests on her shoulder.

“I miss you,” she admits. “I wish you were still here, because I miss you so much I can’t—” she hiccups, “—I can’t breathe.” Her thumb traces the engravings. She wants a bigger headstone, Wally West deserves a damn paragraph to commemorate him. “It’s so hard without you.” She laughs, but it’s watery and and stiff. “I'm happy you got finals done before... before. You got an A in Vietnamese Lit, by the way. I flunked out of the semester, so thank God I have Bruce Wayne's money to back me up.” Wally would've snorted at that.

She plucks a daisy from the grass and lays it on the grave. “I love you,” she whispers. “Never forget that, even when you’re up in the sky and partying and having the time of your life. I love you.”

For a moment, it’s only her and Wally and the stars and it feels like some small part of the wound that’s grown has healed over. And if that could heal over, she might be whole again someday.

Artemis smiles, sad and slow and hopeful. “I love you,” she says before standing up.

Zatanna stands a few feet away, clearly giving her space but keeping an eye on her just in case. Artemis sniffles and wipes her eyes. “Thank you.”

“Hey, what are friends for?” Zatanna asks with understanding in her crystal clear blue eyes. 

“I never thanked you,” a gruff voice says, “for taking care of him.”

Artemis turns, and yup, there’s Captain Cold.

“Snart,” she bites back weakly.

He raises his eyebrows and hands. “I’m not here to fight, just to visit. Like you,” he points out. "I saw you in the bar and figured this is where you would go."

She’s too unsteady on her feet right now to fight a villain that doesn’t want to fight. “Fine. But I did a shitty job of taking care of him.” 

“He died saving the world,” Snart tells her. “Saving the world from an unstoppable threat. Isn’t that how you heroes always want to go out?”

The skin on the inside of her cheek starts getting chewed again. She swallows down the metallic taste. “We wanted to grow old together.”

There’s a palpable pause in the air. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Artemis has been saying that a lot lately. Fine might be her least favorite word. 

“We’re here for you,” Snart says. She looks into his eyes. No tricks, no malice, nothing but a softness not normally shown. “The Rogues. Just stop by Saints and Sinners and you’ll be welcome with us.”

Why did Central have to get all the good villains?

“Thanks.”

Artemis watches Snart leave, cold gun spilling over with… fog? Is it fog? Or water vapor or gas-liquid nitrogen or something equally scientifically stupid? On second thought, she’ll just go with fog.

“Let’s go back,” Zatanna suggests quietly. Artemis nods once.

* * *

Zatanna stays with her for the night. When they wake up in the morning, she gives Artemis her patented Eyes of Steel (no relation to Superman) and says, “We’re going to enroll you for your classes next semester.”

Artemis can’t argue against the Eyes of Steel.

She glances at the picture of her and Wally. 

_ Wally would want me to keep living_, she thinks. She had lived, last night, for the first time in a while. No Tigress, no Wally, just fun. (Okay, maybe some Wally and some sadness.)

So she enrolls in her classes. She’s taking Russian Lit instead of Vietnamese Lit this time, which should be interesting. 

And when Zatanna leaves, she bookmarks Saints and Sinners’s address and adds Pandora's number into her phone.

Wally was always moving. She wouldn’t be surprised if his body was around and he was still vibrating in place. 

She’ll keep moving forward, she’ll keep living. There will continue to be days where her heart aches for him so much she can’t get out of bed, but she won’t push the grief aside, nor let it consume her. She’s going to keep fighting, she’s going to keep doing good in the world. 

She slips on Wally’s corny Flash hoodie and walks out the door to get dinner.

**Author's Note:**

> happy halloween!! I know halloween fics tend to go more spooky, so why not switch it up?? also, this is how it started, and it developed into this, so I kept it. no use writing a whole other fic just for Halloween. 
> 
> also, I know the ending got a little cheesy, but it's halloween, sue me. kinda feel like writing a follow up with the rogues now. ugh, the mind of a writer. 
> 
> hope everyone's out with friends or getting free candy or whatnot!! if you enjoyed this, hop on over to my [tumblr](https://crystalinastar.tumblr.com/) and talk to me!!


End file.
